Identifying and presenting reminders based on opportunity for interaction

ABSTRACT

A method and apparatus are provided for presenting a reminder for a PIM record when there may be an opportunity for personal interaction regarding the PIM record. The opportunity for personal interaction regarding the PIM record may be identified in response to a trigger condition not associated with the PIM record. In one embodiment, an opportunity for interaction regarding a PIM record may be identified using identification information associated with the trigger condition. In another embodiment, an opportunity for interaction regarding a first PIM record may be identified when there is a contact associated with the first PIM record and a second PIM record, and there is an occurrence of a trigger condition associated with a second PIM record. In some embodiments, the portable electronic device may utilize additional information to identify or verify opportunities for interaction regarding a PIM record.

FIELD OF TECHNOLOGY

The present disclosure relates to reminders associated with PersonalInformation Management, “PIM” records on a portable electronic device,and further relates to reminder notifications associated with triggerconditions.

BACKGROUND

Many portable electronic devices (such as cellular telephones, smarttelephones, portable computers, portable personal digital assistants,and portable electronic gaming devices) provide access to PIM records,such as calendar events, task items, memos, or other personalinformation management data records. PIM records may be generated andmanaged in a variety of ways. For example, PIM records may be managed onanother electronic device such as a desktop or personal computer. Asynchronization server or centralized storage server may providesynchronization for a plurality of electronic devices. This may providea convenient solution for a user to access PIM records from a pluralityof electronic devices, including a portable electronic device. Forexample, PIM records may be generated through an input portion of theportable electronic device, generated on a personal computersynchronized with the portable electronic device, generated through athird party service, or automatically generated as a result ofprocessing other PIM records. PIM records accessible to a portableelectronic device may be stored in memory of the portable electronicdevice or in one or more servers accessible by the portable electronicdevice via a network.

PIM records often have reminders associated with them. A reminderconfigured in a PIM record may be used to alert the user regarding thePIM record. Existing reminders associated with PIM records include timebased reminders and proximity based reminders. The purpose of thesereminders is to notify the user regarding the PIM record for which thereminder is configured. Reminders for a PIM record are presented in anumber of ways, such as visual, auditory, tactile, or various othersensorial presentations.

FIG. 1 provides examples of PIM records and reminders. In FIG. 1, aportable electronic device 100 has access to a plurality of PIM records,represented by a calendar PIM record 110, a proximity reminder 130, atask PIM record 150, and a generic PIM record 170. In FIG. 1, the PIMrecords are stored in a local database 102 in the memory of the portableelectronic device 100. The portable electronic device 100 in FIG. 1 hasa display on which various images, screens or windows may be reproduced.As shown, the portable electronic device 100 may reproduce a firstexample screen 101 a and a second example screen 101 b.

A PIM record, such as calendar PIM record 110, may optionally includesubject information 111, location data 112, date and time information113, a time based reminder setting 114, and a list of attendees 115. APIM record, such as proximity reminder 130, may include reminder text131 and an identifier 132 of another portable electronic device. A PIMrecord, such as task PIM record 150, may optionally include a subject151, status setting 152 of the task, a completion deadline 153, a timebased reminder setting 154. Similar to task PIM record 150, a PIM recordmay also include a setting for linked persons 155. The setting forlinked persons 155 may include, for example, a name of a person, acomputer identifier associated with a contact PIM record for a person, asetting for delegating a portion of the task PIM record 150responsibilities to another person, or any other information which mightidentify a contact associated with the task PIM record 150. Generic PIMrecord 170 is representative of other PIM records which might begenerated, accessible or otherwise used by a portable electronic device.Generic PIM record 170 may include information elements 171 which may beassociated with contact information, task information, eventinformation, email information parts, memo information, or any otherinformation which may be associated with Personal InformationManagement, PIM, records. It should be understood that calendar PIMrecord 110, proximity reminder 130, task PIM record 150, or any otherPIM record described in this disclosure may be configured in variousways by combining or otherwise organizing the constituent informationdifferently. Furthermore, PIM records may include additional informationelements which are not explicitly described nor shown in FIG. 1.

In the first example screen 101 a, a time based reminder 120 isdisplayed. In this example, the current time 105 is 2:45 pm. The timebased reminder setting (e.g., setting 114 associated with calendar PIMrecord 110) in this example is configured to reminder the user regardingthe calendar PIM record 110 approximately 15 minutes before the event,as determined by the date and time information 113. At 2:45 PM, becauseof the configured time based reminder setting 114, the example screen101 a is presenting the time based reminder 120, including eventinformation 125 which is extracted from various information elements inthe calendar PIM record 110.

In another example depicted in FIG. 1, a proximity based reminder 140appears on example screen 101 b of a portable electronic device 100. Inthis example, the portable electronic device may monitor (e.g.,periodically, randomly, at regular intervals, etc.) for a radiofrequency broadcast signal, such as Bluetooth™. Upon detection of asignal from a second portable electronic device, the portable electronicdevice may compare an identification or signature, carried in the signalfrom the second portable electronic device, to a proximity reminder 130configured with an identifier 132 of the second portable electronicdevice. The proximity based reminder 140 may comprise reminderinformation 145 extracted from a proximity reminder 130 configured inthe portable electronic device.

So long as the foregoing-described existing reminders are established,they are useful for their intended purpose. However, in the absence ofreminders associated with PIM records, it may be difficult to identifyopportunities to act on stored PIM records.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The disclosure refers to the following figures, in which like numeralsdescribe substantially similar components throughout the several views.

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating examples of reminders and PIM records.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating a method of presenting a reminderbased upon identification information associated with a triggercondition in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating a method of presenting a reminder fora first PIM record upon an occurrence of a trigger condition associatedwith a second PIM record in accordance with another embodiment of thepresent disclosure.

FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating an example method of presenting areminder by associating a first PIM record to a trigger condition of asecond PIM record.

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating an example method of presenting areminder using a third PIM record to establish a relationship between afirst PIM record and a second PIM record.

FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating an example reminder for severalidentified PIM records based on a trigger condition.

FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating a PIM server operable to identify PIMrecords for opportunity based reminders.

FIG. 8 is a diagram illustrating a system operable to identify PIMrecords for a plurality of portable electronic devices in accordancewith another embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 9 is a process flow diagram illustrating an example process ofassociating a trigger condition with a PIM record using a reverselookup.

FIG. 10 is a flowchart illustrating a method of presenting a reminderbased on a status of a contact in accordance with another embodiment ofthe present disclosure.

FIG. 11 illustrates a wireless communications system including anembodiment of a portable electronic device in accordance with at leastone of the embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 12 is a diagram illustrating a processor and related componentssuitable for implementing at least one of the embodiments described inthe present disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The present disclosure provides a method and apparatus for presenting areminder for a PIM record when there may be an opportunity for personalinteraction regarding the PIM record. The opportunity for personalinteraction regarding the PIM record may be identified in response to atrigger condition that is not associated with the PIM record.

In this disclosure, a trigger condition may be any stimulation, event,trigger, or condition of a portable electronic device which initiates aprocess in the portable electronic device, and which may be used toobtain identification information associated with the trigger condition.A trigger condition often occurs when there is an opportunity forinteraction. By obtaining identification information associated with thetrigger condition, a portable electronic device may identifyopportunities regarding PIM records that might coincide with theopportunity for interaction associated with the trigger condition.Identification information may comprise a name, an email address, a username, a phone number, location information about a contact, scheduleinformation about a contact, or any other information which might beassociated with a contact. A contact does not necessarily require anassociated contact PIM record, but may also refer to a person,individual, group, association, place, resource provider, or othercontact descriptor regardless of whether it is associated with a contactPIM record.

In one embodiment, an opportunity for interaction regarding a PIM recordmay be identified using identification information associated with atrigger condition. In another embodiment, an opportunity for interactionregarding a first PIM record may be identified when there is a contactassociated with the first PIM record and a second PIM record, and thereexists a trigger condition associated with a second PIM record. In someembodiments, a portable electronic device may utilize additionalinformation to identify opportunities for interaction regarding a PIMrecord. Additional information may also be used to qualify or confirm anopportunity for interaction regarding a PIM record. For example, aportable electronic device may obtain status information regarding acontact before presenting a reminder regarding a PIM record if thestatus information suggests there is not an opportunity for interactionregarding the PIM record.

Referring now to FIG. 1, an illustrative scenario is provided todescribe the notion of an opportunity-based reminder. In theillustrative scenario, David is a user of the portable electronic device100 having access to a plurality of PIM records, including calendar PIMrecord 110 and task PIM record 150.

David has a task represented by the task PIM record 150, and David knowsthat completion or progress of the task may depend on some action orinformation which John is to perform or provide. Therefore, David hasdesignated John as a linked person in the setting for linked persons 155in David's task PIM record 150. David intends to speak with Johnregarding the task PIM record 150 at the next opportunity. However,David has not scheduled any proximity alert or time based reminderassociated with task PIM record 150 for any number of reasons including:the task has no set deadline; David does not know when he will be ableto confer with John (based on David's or John's availability); and thelike. Accordingly to ensure that David confers with John regarding thetask, David would have to rely on his memory or otherwise check his tasklist periodically or regularly. However, despite reliance on memory orchecking his task list, it is still possible for David to miss anopportunity to confer with John regarding the task.

One specific missed opportunity scenario is now described with respectto the foregoing David and John scenario. Similar to the description ofexample screen 101 a, David's portable electronic device 100 presents atime based reminder 120 associated with an event such as a face to facemeeting or teleconference approximately 15 minutes prior to the eventdescribed in David's calendar PIM record 110. In this example, David'scalendar PIM record 110 includes a list of attendees 115, one of thepersons listed in the list of attendees 115 is one of David's contacts,John. David and John both attend the event. However, David forgets tocheck his list of task items, including task PIM record 150.Furthermore, David is distracted by the activity leading up to andduring the event and, therefore, completely forgets to speak with Johnregarding the task PIM record 150. David has missed an opportunity tointeract with John regarding the task PIM record 150 because he did notreceive an opportunity based reminder that identified an associationbetween calendar PIM record 110 and task PIM record 150.

FIG. 2 illustrates a method of presenting an opportunity-based reminderin accordance with at least one of the embodiments described in thepresent disclosure. In FIG. 2, an example reminder method starts atblock 200. At some point, there is an occurrence of a trigger conditionas illustrated by block 210. In one embodiment, the method stepdescribed in block 220 of FIG. 2 occurs after the occurrence of thetrigger condition. In other embodiments, several of the method steps mayoccur prior to the trigger condition, such as when the trigger conditionis a time based reminder that will occur at a predetermined time in thefuture.

There are several trigger conditions described in this disclosure, butit should be understood that the specific examples described in thisdisclosure are not an exhaustive list of trigger conditions which mightbe used in accordance with this disclosure. A trigger condition may beany stimulation, event, trigger, or condition of a portable electronicdevice which initiates a process in the portable electronic device, andwhich may be used to obtain identification information associated withthe trigger condition. Some examples of trigger conditions include anincoming call, a time based reminder associated with a second PIMrecord, the beginning or end of a call, a proximity detection to anidentified device, an incoming or outgoing message (such as email,instant message, or short message service messages), or any othercondition of a portable electronic device which may be used to obtainassociated identification information associated with the triggercondition.

Describing a first embodiment, there is an occurrence of a triggercondition at block 210. In block 220, the portable electronic deviceobtains identification information associated with the triggercondition. Identification information may comprise a name, an emailaddress, a user name, a phone number, location information about acontact, schedule information about a contact, or any other informationwhich might be used to identify at least one contact. The identificationinformation may comprise information that identifies more than onecontact, such as example of several people listed as attendees in acalendar PIM record triggered by a time based reminder. The type ofidentification information obtained based on the trigger condition maydepend on the type of trigger condition.

As there are several trigger conditions described in this disclosure,this disclosure provides several examples of obtaining identificationinformation as shown in block 220. For some trigger conditions, thetrigger condition will include the identification information and theidentification information may be extracted directly from triggerinformation included in the trigger condition (for example, a caller'sphone number included in an incoming call, source email address for anincoming message, personal identification number for an incomingmessage, etc). In other embodiments, the identification information isobtained by processing trigger information associated with the triggercondition. The trigger information may be used in a database query (alsoreferred to as a “lookup”), a local database query, a remote databasequery, a query to a service provider, or otherwise translated fromtrigger information to identification information. In some embodiments,the trigger information may be translated to identification informationthrough the use of social network applications, information serviceproviders, or information embedded in documents associated with thetrigger condition.

In one example, a trigger condition may be a reminder associated with asecond PIM record. This might include a time-based reminder which isassociated with a calendar event described in the second PIM record. Atrigger condition may also comprise the scheduled starting or endingtime of a calendar event described in the second PIM record. In thesecond PIM record there may be a list of attendees, the list ofattendees including identification information associated with at leastone contact associated with the second PIM record.

In another example, a trigger condition may be an incoming call whichprovides caller identification information, such as a calling number.The calling number may be used to obtain further identificationinformation, such as an associated contact PIM record, identificationinformation from a reverse call lookup service, or identificationinformation from a third party service which may associate a contact tothe calling number.

A trigger condition may be an incoming message (such as an email,instant message, text message, or multimedia message). The incomingmessage may comprise an email address, name, username, or otheridentification information. If the incoming message comprises an IPaddress, it may be possible to obtain identification informationassociated with a contact by performing a lookup in a remote databasethat associates IP addresses to device owners. Alternatively, theincoming message might comprise a personal identification number whichrepresents the sender and can be used to obtain identificationinformation about the sender.

In a further example, a trigger condition could be a notificationmessage to a first portable electronic device from a location service,the notification message indicative that the location service hasidentified a second portable electronic device within a preconfiguredproximity to the first portable electronic device, and includingidentification information associated with the user of the secondportable electronic device. Alternatively, a trigger condition may be adetection of a nearby device based on received short range radiofrequency broadcasts from the nearby device, the short range radiofrequency broadcast including information which may be used to identifythe device or the user of the device.

Obtaining identification information, as shown in block 220, may alsoinvolve iterative processing of trigger information. For example,trigger information may be processed to obtain other information, andthe other information may be further processed to obtain identificationinformation. For example, obtaining identification information maycomprise obtaining other information from a second PIM record thatcontains at least a portion of the identification information and thatis not associated with the trigger condition, and using the otherinformation as identification information. Processing of triggerinformation (or the other information) may involve several operations ofdatabase queries, reverse lookups, or merging of other information toobtain identification information associated with the trigger condition.

In block 230, the portable electronic device identifies a PIM recordthat contains at least a portion of the identification information andthat is not associated with the trigger condition. For example, if thetrigger condition is a time based reminder relative to a calendar PIMrecord, that calendar PIM record will not be identified in block 230. Inanother example, the trigger condition may be a proximity alert relativeto a proximity reminder PIM record, where the identifying as shown inblock 230 will not include that proximity reminder PIM record in theresults of identified PIM records that contain at least a portion of theidentification information and that is not associated with the triggercondition. In some situations the identified PIM record is associatedwith a first topic and a second PIM record which is associated with thetrigger condition may be associated with a second topic, the secondtopic unrelated to the first topic. The identifying shown in block 230may be performed in a number of ways known to a person of skill in theart, such as searching a database of PIM records, querying a server thatprovides a list of identified PIM records, or comparing specific fieldsof PIM records with the portion of the identification information. Inblock 230, the portable electronic device identifies at least one PIMrecord that matches the criteria of containing at least a portion of theidentification information and that is not associated with the triggercondition.

With respect to the foregoing-described David and John missedopportunity scenario, trigger condition (block 210) may be the timebased reminder 120 presented to David. Obtaining identificationinformation (block 220) may comprise scanning the calendar PIM record110 associated with the time based reminder 120 for participantinformation. The calendar PIM record 110 includes the list of attendees115, which has identification information that identifies John. Theidentifying operation (block 230) may be searching for other PIM records(e.g., tasks, memos, etc.) that are associated with John and are notassociated with the time based reminder 110, and identifying task PIMrecord 150.

In block 240, the portable electronic device presents a reminderregarding the PIM record identified in block 230, upon an occurrence ofthe trigger condition (block 210). Because the trigger conditionrepresents a current condition on the portable electronic device, theidentification information associated with the trigger conditionsuggests that there may be an opportunity to interact with the contactrepresented by the identification information. By presenting a reminderfor a PIM record that contains at least a portion of the identificationinformation, the portable electronic device has presented an opportunitybased reminder for the PIM record that might not otherwise triggered bythe trigger condition. As can be appreciated, this opportunity basedreminder may facilitate or enable an interaction or completion of a taskrelated to the PIM record that does not have any reminder configuredprior to the occurrence of the trigger condition.

When presenting a reminder regarding the PIM record, the portableelectronic device may also present additional information from the PIMrecord which enables a user of the portable electronic device toefficiently use the opportunity to interact with the contact associatedwith the PIM record. For example, the portable electronic device maypresent related PIM records, files, notes, or information retrieved fromserver via a network.

Various known techniques for prioritizing reminders in the portableelectronic device may be used with this disclosure. For example, apriority setting, date of creating, or due date associated with the PIMrecord may be used when determining which opportunity based reminder(s)or how many opportunity based reminders to present.

In addition to known techniques for prioritizing reminders, thisdisclosure includes a new technique in relation to opportunity basedreminders. The portable electronic device may prioritize thepresentation of PIM records based on frequency of opportunity tointeract regarding each of the PIM records. The portable electronicdevice may store in the memory of the device, opportunity frequencyinformation associated with each PIM record. In a situation when theidentifying operation (block 230 of FIG. 2) identifies more than one PIMrecord that contains the portion of the identification information andthat is not associated with the trigger condition, then the identifiedPIM records may be prioritized based on the opportunity frequencyinformation associated with each of the identified PIM records.

Describing a second embodiment with respect to FIG. 2, the examplemethod begins at block 200. In this embodiment, the trigger conditionmay be a time based reminder that will occur at a predetermined time inthe future. For example, there may be a scheduled PIM record (such as acalendar PIM record) that has a configured time based reminder settingthat will trigger the scheduled time based reminder in the future. Theportable electronic device may periodically check for scheduled timebased reminders and treat each scheduled time based reminder as apredicted trigger condition for preparing opportunity based reminders inadvance of an occurrence of the predicted trigger condition 210. Thescheduled PIM record that contains the scheduled time based reminder mayhave identification information included in the scheduled PIM record. Instep 220, the portable electronic device obtains the identificationinformation associated with the scheduled PIM record. In step 230, theportable electronic device having access to PIM records, identifies aPIM record that contains a portion of the identification information andthat is not associated with the scheduled PIM record. In this secondembodiment, the portable electronic device may store information aboutpredicted opportunity based reminders in a memory of the portableelectronic device. For example, this may be stored as a separatereminder, as a new association in the scheduled PIM record, or as amodification to the PIM record identified in step 230. Upon occurrenceof the predicted trigger condition 210 (such as occurrence the scheduledtime based reminder at the scheduled time), the portable electronicdevice presents a reminder regarding the PIM record 240.

FIG. 3 illustrates another example method of presenting anopportunity-based reminder involving a first PIM record and a second PIMrecord, starting with block 300.

At block 330, the portable electronic device identifies that there is acontact associated with both of a first PIM record and the second PIMrecord. The identifying operation, as described in block 330, may occureither before or after the occurrence of the trigger condition (block310) associated with the second PIM record. At block 310 there is anoccurrence of a trigger condition at block 210. Similar to FIG. 2, thetrigger condition may be a variety of trigger conditions. However, asdepicted in block 310, the trigger condition in FIG. 3 is associatedwith a second PIM record. For example, the trigger condition may be atime based reminder, a proximity reminder, or any other triggercondition associated with the second PIM record. By analyzing PIMrecords to identify when a contact is associated with two or more PIMrecords, the portable electronic device may generate an opportunitybased reminders for a first PIM record that may be seemingly unrelatedto a trigger condition in a second PIM record. At block 340, the methodincludes presenting a reminder regarding the first PIM record based onthe occurrence of the trigger condition associated with the second PIMrecord, the trigger condition having no association with the first PIMrecord.

FIG. 4 depicts an example implementation in accordance with at least oneof the embodiments described in the present disclosure. Continuing withthe example in FIG. 1, the same scenario may be improved using one ormore of the techniques described in this disclosure. User, David,carries a portable electronic device having access to PIM records,including calendar PIM record 110 and task PIM record 150. In thisexample, calendar PIM record 110 may represent a scheduled conferencecall, and includes a time based reminder setting 114. A triggercondition occurs when the time based reminder associated with the timebased reminder setting 114 is presented to David by David's portableelectronic device. David's portable electronic device obtainsidentification information (from the list of attendees 115 in calendarPIM record 110) associated with the trigger condition (time basedreminder for calendar PIM record 110). As described before, the list ofattendees 115 includes identification information identifying(illustrated by double-headed arrow 420) contact, John, as an attendeeof the conference call. Contact John may be represented by contact 400in FIG. 4. Contact 400 is not necessarily associated with contact PIMrecord 180, but may also refer to a person, individual, group,association, place, resource provider, or other contact descriptorregardless of whether it is associated with a contact PIM record 180.David's portable electronic device identifies (illustrated bydouble-headed arrow 440) a PIM record, represented by task PIM record150, that contains a portion of the identification information. In FIG.4, task PIM record 150 includes a setting for linked persons 155, whichincludes John's name as a linked person. Upon occurrence of the triggercondition associated with the triggered PIM record, the portableelectronic device presents a reminder associated with the identified PIMrecord. In the example, David's portable electronic device may present a15 minute reminder of a meeting about to begin, as well as a reminderregarding task PIM record 150, where David might have an opportunity towork on the task with John prior to the meeting. Alternatively, thetrigger condition may be the ending time of the triggered PIM meeting,so that David is presented with a reminder regarding task PIM record 150at the conclusion of the meeting where John and David are bothattendees.

In further scenarios, task PIM record 150 may be a task for David todiscuss a document with John. In this scenario, when the portableelectronic device presents the reminder to David regarding the task PIMrecord 150, the reminder may include a link to the document, a summaryof the contents of the document, or a portion of the document that needsto be discussed. Alternatively, the reminder may include (as illustratedby double-headed arrow 460) information regarding the contact 400,stored in a contact PIM record 180. For example, David's portableelectronic device may present a reminder regarding task PIM record 150and include a phone number for John stored in contact PIM record 180 sothat David can call John prior to or after the meeting.

If David's portable electronic device identifies several PIM recordswhich contain a portion of the identification information included inthe triggered PIM record, then David's device might prioritize thepresentation of the identified PIM records. For example, David sees Johnvery frequently, so the portable electronic device may prioritize theopportunity based reminder associated with task PIM record 150 lowerthan an opportunity based reminder associated with another identifiedPIM record for a contact which David rarely has an opportunity withwhich to interact.

Finally, David's portable electronic device may implement procedures oroperations described above with respect to FIG. 10 for presentation ofthe opportunity based reminder. David's portable electronic device mayobtain proximity information associated with John, such as detecting fora short range radio frequency broadcast from a second portableelectronic device belonging to John. David's device determinesattendance verification for John based on whether John's device iswithin a short range proximity to David. If the attendance verificationindicates that John is present at the meeting (first condition), thenDavid's device might present the reminder regarding the task PIM record150. If the attendance verification indicates that John is not presentat the meeting (second condition), then David's device might refrainfrom presenting the reminder 350.

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating an example scenario in which first,second and third PIM records are used in associating a first PIM recordto a trigger condition of a second PIM record in accordance with atleast one of embodiments described in the present disclosure. A user ofa portable electronic device has access to PIM records, including afirst PIM record, a second PIM record, and a third PIM record. In thisfigure, the second PIM record may be the cause for a trigger conditionin the portable electronic device. The portable electronic device mayobtain identification information associated with the trigger conditionby determining a relationship between a contact and the second PIMrecord based on other information. In this figure, the portableelectronic device determines a relationship between the second PIMrecord and the contact based upon a third PIM record.

In FIG. 5, the first PIM record is represented by task PIM record 150,the second PIM record is represented by calendar PIM record 110, and thethird PIM record is represented by contact PIM record 510. The calendarPIM record 110 includes a location data 112 for the meeting representedby the calendar PIM record 110. The location data 112 may be a roomnumber, a building identifier, a street address, a longitude/latitude, auser-entered location tag, or any other information which identifies alocation. For example, the location data 112 might reference a buildingnumber, such as “Building 2.” The contact PIM record 510 describescontact 400, and includes information that may be associated with acontact PIM record, including a name entry 501, address entry 502,current location entry 503, follow-up flag 504, status information 505,or other information elements represented by information element 506.Current location 503 may be a published location (e.g., maintained by alocation server), which is logically integrated with contact PIM record510. For this example, the address entry 502 includes an indication thatcontact 400 has his office in “Building 2, room 100.” The portableelectronic device determines a relationship between seemingly unrelatedPIM records 110 and 150 through the contact 400 by using a relationship500 between location data 112 and address entry 502. Address entry 502is part of the contact PIM record 520 that describes contact 400, andincludes identification information, such as a name entry 501. Bydetermining the relationship between the second PIM record and thecontact using a third PIM record, the portable electronic device obtainsidentification information identifying contact 400. In FIG. 5, contact400 is listed 440 as a linked person in a linked person setting 155 fortask PIM record 150. The portable electronic device identifies task PIMrecord 150 as a PIM record that contains a portion of identificationinformation associated (by way of a third PIM record) with a triggercondition in the second PIM record.

For example the user of the portable electronic device in FIG. 5 mayhave a meeting in which he will travel to Building 2. The user rarelygoes to Building 2, so it is useful that his portable electronic deviceidentifies that he may have an opportunity to meet with contact 400regarding a task PIM record 150 that is not associated with the meetingdescribed in calendar PIM record 110.

In further examples, the portable electronic device may obtain map androuting information showing the route that the user of the portableelectronic device may drive or otherwise traverse to get to the locationspecified for the second PIM record. If the portable electronic devicedetermines that the portable electronic device will be conveyed past alocation associated with a contact, the portable electronic device mayutilize identification information associated with the contact toidentify PIM records that contain the identification information. Theremay be an opportunity for the user of the portable electronic device tointeract with a contact on a travel route to a location associated witha trigger condition. Further variations might include building floormaps, employee office locations relative to meeting rooms, or locationtracking systems that maintain location information for a contact.

FIG. 6 illustrates an example embodiment in which a trigger conditionmight be used to identify several PIM records in accordance with atleast one of the embodiments described in the present disclosure. InFIG. 6, triggered PIM record 600 is a generic PIM record that includesinformation elements 171 and a configured proximity alert 605. Theconfigured proximity alert 605 might be a trigger condition that occurswhenever the portable electronic device is within a proximity to alocation or another device. For example, when the portable electronicdevice detects a short range radio frequency broadcast signalidentifying a device, it might cause a trigger condition in thetriggered PIM record 600. The triggered PIM record 600 may include arelationship 610 to a contact 400. For example, if triggered PIM record600 is a contact PIM record, it may include identification informationin the triggered PIM record 600. In other cases, the triggered PIMrecord 600 may be a proximity PIM record, a task PIM record defining onetask, or any other type of PIM record. If the triggered PIM record 600does not include identification information in the triggered PIM record600, the portable electronic device may obtain identificationinformation from a relationship with other information (e.g., through alook up operation that is performed relative to a database or serviceprovider). For example, the portable electronic device may detect a newshort range radio frequency broadcast signal that includes a deviceidentification, but does not identify a contact associated with thedevice identification. The portable electronic device may perform aremote database lookup or query a service provider to obtainidentification information associated with the device identification. Bydetermining a relationship 610 between the triggered PIM record and thecontact 400, the portable electronic device obtains identificationinformation which may be used to identify PIM records that contain 615the identification information. In FIG. 6, the portable electronicdevice has identified three identified PIM records, represented byidentified PIM record 620 a, identified PIM record 620 b, and identifiedPIM record 620 c.

Therefore, when the trigger condition occurs relative to the triggeredPIM record 600, the portable electronic device presents remindersassociated with identified PIM records 620 a, 620 b, 620 c. It ispossible for the user of the portable electronic device to maximizeproductivity by being reminded regarding various PIM records for whichhe or she is likely to have an opportunity to complete.

FIG. 7 depicts an example configuration wherein a system is operable tomatch or otherwise associate PIM records for a plurality of portableelectronic devices in accordance with at least one of the embodimentsdescribed in the present disclosure.

A first portable electronic device 720 comprises a first PIM client 730that communicates 705 with a PIM server 700 via a network. The firstportable electronic device 730 comprises a first local database 740stored in the memory of the first portable electronic device 730 andaccessible 735 by the first PIM client 730. The first portableelectronic device 730 may communicate 705 with the PIM server 700 tosynchronize the first local database 740 with a first remote database750. During synchronization, the PIM server 700 and the first PIM client730 access the first remote database 750 and first local database 740,respectively, to synchronize PIM records. As a result ofsynchronization, the first remote database 750 includes PIM recordsassociated with the first portable electronic device 720, the PIMrecords represented by first PIM record 760 and second PIM record 770.

The PIM server 700 may be configured as a computing device (e.g., serverhardware) that comprises a processor configured to perform operationssimilar to those described with reference to FIGS. 2 and 3. The PIMserver 700 may analyze a plurality of PIM records to generate a list ofpredicted trigger conditions expected to occur on the first portableelectronic device 720. For example, the second PIM record 770 mayinclude information elements 171 and may include a time-based entry 775which suggests there will be a trigger condition occurring at the timespecified by the time-based entry 775. Time-based entry 775 may be astarting date and time for a meeting, an ending date and time for ameeting, a time based reminder setting, or any other information whichindicates a time occurring in the future and associating a triggercondition with the second PIM record 770. Once the PIM server 700 hasgenerated a list of predicted trigger conditions, for each predictedtrigger condition, the PIM server 700 may obtain identificationinformation associated with the predicted trigger condition. Using theidentification information, the PIM server 700 may identify a PIM recordthat contains at least a portion of the identification information andthat is not associated with the predicted trigger condition. Forexample, the PIM server 700 may identify the first PIM record 760 ascontaining identification information in a linked person setting 765 inthe first PIM record 760. After identifying the first PIM record 760,the PIM server 700 may send present a reminder notification regardingthe first PIM record 760 to the first portable electronic device 720based on the predicted trigger condition. The reminder notification maybe a message communicated to the first portable electronic device 720.The reminder notification may create a new reminder entry in the firstportable electronic device 720 if the reminder notification is sentprior to the occurrence of the predicted trigger condition. The newreminder entry may be a reminder that is presented to the user of thefirst portable electronic device 720 upon occurrence of the predictedtrigger condition. Alternatively, the PIM server 700 may communicate amessage to the first portable electronic device 720 at the time when thepredicted trigger condition is expected to occur. A system implementedin this way may be useful, for example, if database queries are used todetermine relationships between predicted trigger conditions andidentification information. To this end, the PIM server 700 performingthe database queries or otherwise acting as a proxy for the device 720may conserve battery and network resources that might otherwise be usedif the first portable electronic device 720 performed the queries.

FIG. 8 depicts another example embodiment wherein a system is operableto identify PIM records for a plurality of portable electronic devices.Similar to the first portable electronic device 720, FIG. 8 includes asecond portable electronic device 820. The second portable electronicdevice 820 may operate in a similar fashion as the first portableelectronic device 720, and may comprise a second PIM client 830, secondlocal database 840 accessed 835 by the second PIM client 830. The secondportable electronic device 820 communicates 805 with the PIM server 700to synchronize PIM records between the second local database 840 and thesecond remote database 850. Optionally, the PIM server 700 may also haveaccess 875 to additional information 880. The additional information 880might be location information, mapping information, status information,or any other information which might be accessible 875 by the PIM server700 in addition to the PIM records.

The PIM server 700 may analyze PIM records for the first portableelectronic device 720 and the second portable electronic device 820 toidentify predicted trigger conditions. For each predicted triggercondition, the PIM server 700 may obtain identification informationassociated with the predicted trigger condition. In one embodiment, thePIM server 700 may utilize additional information 880 to determinerelationships between the predicted trigger condition and a contact. Foreach predicted trigger condition, the PIM server 700 may identify PIMrecords which contain the identification information and that are notassociated with the predicted trigger condition. For identified PIMrecords, the PIM server 700 may present a reminder notification to theportable electronic device associated with each identified PIM record.

As an example, PIM server 700 may have access 745 to calendar PIMrecords for the user of the first portable electronic device 720 and thePIM server 700 may have access 845 to calendar PIM records for the userof the second portable electronic device 820. In addition to thecalendar PIM records, the PIM server 700 also has access 875 to locationinformation stored in a database of additional information 880. The PIMserver 700 may identify a predicted trigger condition regarding thesecond PIM record 860. For example, the predicted trigger condition maybe a meeting appointment at a specified date and time and specifiedmeeting location. The PIM server 700 may then obtain identificationinformation by determining a relationship between the second PIM record860 and various contacts. In this example, the PIM server 700 has access875 to additional information 880, including location information whichlists nearby offices that are near the specified meeting location. ThePIM server 700 may then search the PIM records to identify one or morePIM records which contains an overlapping date and time setting as thespecified date and time in the second PIM record and which containeither the specified meeting location or one of the nearby offices. As aresult of this search, the PIM server 700 is able to predict which usersof portable electronic devices will be in a nearby proximity, even ifthey are in different meetings at different rooms. For example a firstuser may be in a first meeting in a first room, very near to a secondroom where a second user is attending a second meeting at an overlappingtime during which the first user is in the first meeting. Aftercompiling identification information through these several queries, thePIM server 700 may identify PIM records which contain the identificationinformation and that are not associated with the predicted triggercondition or predicted trigger conditions. After identifying anidentified PIM record, the PIM server 700 may present a remindernotification to the portable electronic device associated with theidentified PIM record.

In a variation of example used relative to FIGS. 1 and 4, David and Johnmay be a first and second user of portable electronic devices whichaccess the PIM server 700. The PIM server 700 may determine that John isscheduled to be in a meeting in Building 6 on September 26 at 10:00 AMlocal time. The PIM server 700 may utilize intelligence to determinethat John will likely travel to attend the meeting which is in adifferent building than his office location. At the same date and time,David is scheduled to attend a meeting in a different room in Building 6for a topic unrelated to John's meeting. During a periodic process, thePIM server 700 compiles the identification information by analyzing aplurality of PIM records. For example, the PIM server 700 may begin withDavid's calendar PIM record and utilize the location and scheduleinformation to determine a relationship to other contacts which might bein the same location around the same time. For example, the PIM server700 may identify all the people in Building 6 or people scheduled toattend meetings in Building 6. By utilizing other PIM records andadditional information 880 to determine relationships to other contacts,the PIM server 700 may identify that John will be in a nearby locationat around the same time as David. Therefore, the PIM server 700 searchesfor a PIM record in David's PIM records that contains a reference toJohn and that is not associated with David's scheduled meeting. As aresult of the search, the PIM server 700 identifies a task PIM record inwhich David intends to interact with John the next time they see eachother. The PIM server 700 may present a reminder notification to David'sportable electronic device indicating that John may be in the vicinity.In response to the reminder notification, David's portable electronicdevice may enable a proximity detection to verify when it is withinproximity to John's portable electronic device. Alternatively, David'sportable electronic device may present a reminder to David indicatingthat David has a task PIM record associated with John and that John maybe in the vicinity around the same time. Fortunately, David sees John asthey are entering their separate meetings, but because of theopportunity based reminder, David takes advantage of the opportunity tocomplete the task represented by the task PIM record.

FIG. 9 is an example process flow diagram illustrating an implementationof opportunity based reminders in accordance with at least one ofembodiments described in the present disclosure. In FIG. 9, a portableelectronic device is represented by line 900, with time increasing inthe downward direction. At an initial stage of the process, the portableelectronic device 900 receives a communication 905 from a contact 910via a network. For example, communication 905 may be an incoming call,an incoming message, a received broadcast signal or any othercommunication received from contact 910. In this example, communication905 is a trigger condition on the portable electronic device 900. Theportable electronic device 900, queries (represented by arrow 915) aremote data source 920 to obtain identification information associatedwith the trigger condition. The portable electronic device 900 receives(represented by arrow 925) identification information from the remotedata source 920. The querying 915 and receiving 925 may be, for example,a remote database query. Examples of querying 915 and receiving 925 mayinclude a reverse caller id lookup, a query to a service provider (suchas network operator, instant message service provider, social networkmessaging platform), an Internet search, or any other query and responsewhich yields identification information associated with the incomingcommunication 905. At process 930, the portable electronic deviceidentifies a PIM record which contains the identification informationand that is not associated with the trigger condition. For example, itmay identify a task PIM record associated with the contact 910. Atprocess 940, the portable electronic device presents a reminderregarding the identified PIM record.

Further to the previous example (with respect to FIG. 1), the contact910 may be John calling David's portable electronic device 900. In thisexample, John may have called from his phone number which is notprogrammed in David's portable electronic device, so the caller IDincluded in the incoming communication 905 only includes John's homephone number. David may not be inclined to answer the phone if he doesnot recognize the caller's phone number. Following the process in FIG.9, David's portable electronic device queries 915 a public Internetsearch engine 920 and receives 925 John's name associated with thecaller ID. Using this identification information, David's portableelectronic device identifies 930 the task PIM record which containsJohn's name and is not associated with the trigger condition. David'sportable electronic device presents a reminder 940 to David regardingthe task PIM record, reminding David to talk with John regarding thetask, allowing David to answer the incoming communication from John.

FIG. 10 is a flowchart illustrating a further example method forpresentation of opportunity based reminders in accordance with at leastone of the embodiments described in the present disclosure. Referringnow to FIG. 10, the portable electronic device presents an opportunitybased reminder based upon an occurrence of a trigger conditionsuggesting an opportunity to interact with a contact and further basedon a status of the contact. In block 1000, the flowchart of FIG. 10begins after identifying a PIM record for an opportunity based reminder.For example, this might follow blocks 210 and 230 from FIG. 2, in whichthere has been an occurrence of a trigger condition (block 210) andidentification (block 230) of a PIM record which contains at least aportion of the identification information obtained from the triggercondition. In this situation, the identification information identifiesa contact. Alternatively, block 1000 might follow block 310 and 330 fromFIG. 3, in which there has been an occurrence of a trigger condition(block 310) and there has been an identifying operation (block 330) toidentify a contact associated with both of a first PIM record and thesecond PIM record.

In block 1005, presentation of a reminder regarding the first PIM recordis further based upon the status of the contact. In block 1010, theportable electronic device obtains status information associated withthe contact. Status information may comprise proximity information,location information, presence information or availability informationassociated with the contact. As some examples, status information may bea shared calendar sharing free/busy information, a status message in aninstant message application, a profile status setting in a socialnetworking application, a current location retrieved from a locationserver, a proximity detection indicating a proximal relationship to theportable electronic device, or any information which might be used todetermine a status of the contact. In block 1020, the portableelectronic device determines the status of the contact. In block 1030,the method checks the status to see if it matches a first condition or asecond condition. If the status matches a first condition, then at block1040, the portable electronic device presents a reminder regarding thePIM record. If the status matches a second condition, then at block1050, the portable electronic device refrains from presenting thereminder regarding the second PIM record.

FIG. 11 illustrates an example wireless communications system includingan embodiment of a portable electronic device in accordance with atleast one of the embodiments described in the present disclosure. Theportable electronic device 1100 is operable for implementing aspects ofthe disclosure, but the disclosure should not be limited to theseimplementations. The portable electronic device 1100 may be (or be apart of) a smart phone, wireless router, relay, laptop computer, tabletcomputer, GPS-enabled device, Navigation System, wireless mobiletracking device or any other device which may transmit information via awireless network 1107.

The portable electronic device 1100 may include a user interface thatincludes a display 1102 and a user input 1104. The user input 1104 ofportable electronic device 1100 may be or include a touch-sensitivesurface, a keyboard or other input keys known in the art. The keyboardmay be a full or reduced alphanumeric keyboard such as QWERTY, Dvorak,AZERTY, and sequential types, or a traditional numeric keypad withalphabet letters associated with a telephone keypad. The input keys mayinclude a trackwheel, an exit or escape key, a trackball, and othernavigational or functional keys, which may be inwardly depressed toprovide further input function. The portable electronic device 1100 maypresent options for the user to select, controls for the user toactuate, and/or cursors or other indicators for the user to direct.

The portable electronic device 1100 may further accept data entry fromthe user, including numbers to dial or various parameter values forconfiguring the operation of the portable electronic device 1100. Theportable electronic device 1100 may further execute one or more softwareor firmware applications in response to user commands. Theseapplications may configure the portable electronic device 1100 toperform various customized functions in response to user interaction.Additionally, the portable electronic device 1100 may be programmedand/or configured over-the-air, for example from a wireless basestation, a wireless access point, or a peer portable electronic device1100.

Among the various applications executable by the portable electronicdevice 1100 is, for example, a PIM application for storing, retrievingand otherwise managing PIM records or information. Another applicationmay be a web browser, which enables the display 1102 to show a web page.The web page may be obtained via wireless communications with a wirelessnetwork access node, a cell tower, a peer portable electronic device1100, or any other wireless communication network or system 1100. Thenetwork 1107 may be coupled to a wired network 1108, such as theInternet. Via the wireless link and the wired network, the portableelectronic device 1100 can have access to information on variousservers, such as a server 1110. The server 1110 may provide content thatmay be shown on the display 1102. Alternately, the portable electronicdevice 1100 may access the network 1107 through a peer portableelectronic device 1100 acting as an intermediary, in a relay type or hoptype of connection. A portable electronic device 1100 may be operable totransmit over one or more of any suitable wireless networks 1100 knownin the art.

The portable electronic device 1100 and other components described abovemay include a processing component that is capable of executinginstructions related to the actions described above.

FIG. 12 illustrates an example embodiment of an apparatus 1200 that maybe configured to operate as a device (e.g., mobile 1100, server such as1110 or PIM server 700) which includes a processing component 1210suitable for implementing one or more of the embodiments earlierdescribed herein. In addition to the processor 1210 (which may bereferred to as a central processor unit or CPU), the system 1200 mayinclude network connectivity devices 1220, random access memory (RAM)1230, read only memory (ROM) 1240, secondary storage 1250, andinput/output (I/O) devices 1260. These components may communicate withone another via a bus 1270. In some cases, some of these components maynot be present or may be combined in various combinations with oneanother or with other components not shown. These components may belocated in a single physical entity or in more than one physical entity.Any actions described herein as being taken by the processor 1210 mightbe taken by the processor 1210 alone or by the processor 1210 inconjunction with one or more components shown or not shown in thedrawing, such as a digital signal processor (DSP) 1280. Although the DSP1280, is shown as a separate component, the DSP 1280 may be incorporatedinto the processor 1210.

The processor 1210 executes instructions, logic, codes, computerprograms, or scripts that it may access from the network connectivitydevices 1220, RAM 1230, ROM 1240, or secondary storage 1250 (which mightinclude various disk-based systems such as hard disk, floppy disk, oroptical disk). In one embodiment, a computer readable medium may storecomputer readable instructions, which when executed by the processor1210, cause the processor to perform according to a method described inthis disclosure. While only one CPU 1210 is shown, multiple processorsmay be present. Thus, while instructions may be discussed as beingexecuted by a processor, the instructions may be executedsimultaneously, serially, or otherwise by one or multiple processors.The processor 1210 may, for example, be implemented as one or more CPUchips or modules. The processor 1210 may also be integrated with otherfunctions of portable electronic device 1100 in or on a single chip ormodule.

The network connectivity devices 1220 may take the form of modems, modembanks, Ethernet devices, universal serial bus (USB) interface devices,serial interfaces, token ring devices, fiber distributed data interface(FDDI) devices, wireless local area network (WLAN) devices, radiotransceiver devices such as code division multiple access (CDMA)devices, global system for mobile communications (GSM) radio transceiverdevices, worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX)devices, and/or other well-known devices for connecting to networks.These network connectivity devices 1220 may enable the processor 1210 tocommunicate with the Internet or one or more telecommunications networksor other networks from which the processor 1210 might receiveinformation or to which the processor 1210 might output information. Thenetwork connectivity devices 1220 might also include one or moretransceiver components 1225 capable of transmitting and/or receivingdata wirelessly.

The RAM 1230 might be used to store volatile data and perhaps to storeinstructions that are executed by the processor 1210. The ROM 1240 is anon-volatile memory device that in some cases has a smaller memorycapacity than the memory capacity of the secondary storage 1250. ROM1240 might be used to store instructions and perhaps data that are readduring execution of the instructions. Access to both RAM 1230 and ROM1240 is typically faster than to secondary storage 1250. The secondarystorage 1250 is typically comprised of one or more disk drives or tapedrives and might be used for non-volatile storage of data or as anover-flow data storage device if RAM 1230 is not large enough to holdall working data. However, the secondary storage 1250 could beimplemented using any appropriate storage technology, includingso-called “solid state disk”, FLASH, EEPROM, or other generallynon-volatile or persistent storage. Secondary storage 1250 may be usedto store programs that are loaded into RAM 1230 when such programs areselected for execution.

The I/O devices 1260 may include liquid crystal displays (LCDs), touchscreen displays, keyboards, keypads, switches, dials, mice, track balls,voice recognizers, card readers, paper tape readers, printers, videomonitors, or other well-known input devices. Also, the transceiver 1225might be considered to be a component of the I/O devices 1260 instead ofor in addition to being a component of the network connectivity devices1220. Some or all of the I/O devices 1260 may be substantially similarto various components depicted in the previously described drawing ofthe portable electronic device 1100, such as the display 1102 and theinput 1104.

The present disclosure provides a method and apparatus for presenting anopportunity-based reminder. For example, a reminder may be presented fora PIM record when there may be an opportunity for personal interactionregarding the PIM record. The opportunity for personal interactionregarding the PIM record may be identified in response to a triggercondition that is not associated with the PIM record. In one embodiment,for a method in a portable electronic device, the method comprisesobtaining identification information associated with a trigger conditionin the portable electronic device; identifying a Personal InformationManagement, PIM, record that contains at least a portion of theidentification information and that is not associated with the triggercondition; and presenting a reminder regarding the PIM record based onan occurrence of the trigger condition.

In another embodiment, for a method in a portable electronic devicehaving access to Personal Information Management, PIM, entries, themethod comprises identifying a contact associated with both of a firstPIM record and a second PIM record; and presenting a reminder regardingthe first PIM record based on an occurrence of a trigger conditionassociated with the second PIM record, the trigger condition having noassociation with the first PIM record.

In one implementation, the method further comprises determining a statusof a contact based on status information, status information being oneof proximity information, location information, presence information andavailability information associated with the contact; presenting thereminder regarding the second PIM record when the status indicates afirst condition; and refraining from presenting the reminder when thestatus indicates a second condition.

The steps, processes, or operations described herein are examples. Theremay be many variations to these steps or operations without departingfrom the scope of this disclosure. For instance, where appropriate, thesteps may be performed in a differing order, or steps may be added,deleted, or modified.

Although example embodiments of this disclosure have been depicted anddescribed in detail herein, it will be apparent to those skilled in therelevant art that various modifications, additions, substitutions, andthe like can be made without departing from the concepts and embodimentsdisclosed herein, and these are therefore considered to be within thescope of the present subject matter as defined in the following claims.

1. A method in a portable electronic device, the method comprising:obtaining identification information associated with a trigger conditionin the portable electronic device; identifying a Personal InformationManagement, PIM, record that contains at least a portion of theidentification information, wherein the PIM record was previously notconfigured to be associated with the trigger condition prior to anoccurrence of the trigger condition; and presenting a reminder regardingthe PIM record based on the occurrence of the trigger condition.
 2. Themethod of claim 1, wherein the trigger condition is one of a proximitydetection, an incoming call, an incoming message, a reminder associatedwith a second PIM record, and a notification message from a server. 3.The method of claim 1, wherein the identification information identifiesa contact.
 4. The method of claim 3, wherein presenting a remindercomprises: providing a notification indicating an opportunity tocommunicate with the contact regarding the PIM record.
 5. The method ofclaim 3, wherein presenting a reminder is further based on statusinformation indicating a status of the contact, and the method furthercomprises: determining the status of the contact based on the statusinformation, status information being one of proximity information,location information, presence information and availability informationassociated with the contact; presenting the reminder regarding thesecond PIM record when the status indicates a first condition; andrefraining from presenting the reminder when the status indicates asecond condition.
 6. The method of claim 5, wherein the locationinformation comprises a map and a travel route.
 7. The method of claim3, wherein obtaining identification information comprises: determining arelationship between the contact and a second PIM record based on otherinformation.
 8. The method of claim 7, wherein the other informationcomprises a third PIM record accessible by the portable electronicdevice.
 9. The method of claim 1, wherein the trigger condition is areminder associated with a second PIM record.
 10. The method of claim 9,wherein the second PIM record is a calendar item and the triggercondition is a time-based reminder relative to the second PIM record.11. The method of claim 9, wherein the PIM record is associated with afirst topic, the second PIM record is associated with a second topic,and wherein the first topic and second topic are unrelated.
 12. Aportable electronic device, comprising: a processor configured to:obtain identification information associated with a trigger condition inthe portable electronic device; identify a Personal InformationManagement, PIM, record that contains at least a portion of theidentification information, wherein the PIM record was previously notconfigured to be associated with the trigger condition prior to anoccurrence of the trigger condition; and present a reminder regardingthe PIM record based on the occurrence of the trigger condition.
 13. Theportable electronic device of claim 12, wherein the processor is furtherconfigured to: determine the status of a contact associated with theidentification information, based on status information indicating astatus of the contact; present the reminder regarding the second PIMrecord when the status indicates a first condition; and refrain frompresenting the reminder when the status indicates a second condition.14. The portable electronic device of claim 12, wherein the triggercondition is one of a proximity detection, an incoming call, an incomingmessage, a reminder associated with a second PIM record, and anotification message from a server.
 15. The portable electronic deviceof claim 12, wherein the status information is one of proximityinformation, location information, presence information and availabilityinformation associated with the contact.
 16. The portable electronicdevice of claim 12, wherein the trigger condition is a reminderassociated with a second PIM record.
 17. The portable electronic deviceof claim 12, wherein the processor during the operation to obtainidentification information performs an operation to: obtain otherinformation from a second PIM record that contains at least a portion ofthe identification information and that is not associated with thetrigger condition and using the other information as identificationinformation.
 18. A method in a server with access to a plurality ofPersonal Information Management, PIM, records, the method comprising:processing identification information associated with each of the PIMrecords to identify a first PIM record and a second PIM record thatshare at least a portion of identification information; and causing areminder notification to be presented on a portable electronic deviceregarding the first PIM record based on an occurrence of a triggercondition associated with the second PIM record, wherein the first PIMrecord was previously not configured in association with the triggercondition prior to the occurrence of the trigger condition.
 19. Themethod of claim 18, wherein causing comprises communicating a message tothe portable electronic device associated with the first PIM record. 20.The method of claim 18, wherein the first PIM record is associated witha first portable electronic device and the second PIM record isassociated with a second portable electronic device.